‘Silo’ Recap Season 2 Episode 7: ‘The Dive’

Silo

The dive

Season 2

Section 7

Editor’s assessment

4 stars

****

Photo: Apple TV+/Copyrighted

Do you ever think how much it must have cost to build it Silo set? Do you think how much it has cost this season to build one other set to the crumbling and waterlogged Silo 17?

I thought about that a lot throughout the visually stunning Silo 17 scenes in this week’s episode — titled “The Dive” because Juliette’s deep dive into the silo’s rising waters is the centerpiece of the episode. For the second time this season, Juliette has an exciting underwater adventure as she tries to get the silo’s water pump going for Solo, who has hidden the suit and helmet she needs to return to Silo 18. Once again, she must trust Solo to help keep her alive during the dive through a silo that has the same basic layout as her own, but with unpredictable obstacles due to the post-rebellion flood and chaos.

Lately, however, Solo has been less reliable. He is no longer the cute, boyish hermit filled with curiosity. He has revealed himself to be petty, quick-tempered, deceitful…and a fraud. The scenes between Rebecca Ferguson and Steve Zahn have their own kind of action and tension as the suffering-no-fools Juliette tries to push this overgrown kid around and he responds with dogged humility.

The basis of Solo’s argument is strong. He needs Juliette to turn the tide now, because once she leaves Silo 17, there’s a good chance she’ll never return. But he comes across as so whiny and pathetic throughout their conversation. When she says he should make the dive, he responds by yelling, “I’m the head of IT,” and she retorts, “You’re not even solo!” He holds a small bell as he cringes at her comment, and the way it jingles only makes the scene sadder.

In the end, of course, Juliette takes the plunge, counting on the little bell to alert Solo when the pump is operating and she’s ready to be pulled back up. In classic “let me explain the plan in detail to the audience so they know what’s at stake when it inevitably goes wrong,” Solo teaches Juliette a bit about swimming and warns her about the dangers of going up too fast and getting bent over. Sure enough, after Juliette flips all the necessary switches, she discovers that the rope attached to the bell has floated away and her air supply has been cut off. She has no choice but to ignore Solo’s warning and quickly ascend.

Again, it’s all just great action-adventure storytelling filled with strong character moments, eye-popping visuals and nerve-wracking twists. This part of the episode also ends dramatically, with Juliette making her way back up and out of the water only to find a trail of blood leading away from where Solo was stationed. Throw in as many exclamation points and question marks as you need to express just the right amount of surprise.

The action in Silo 18 doesn’t compare this week, but that’s okay. After last week’s gripping, 18-focused episode, the characters there have earned some time to regroup and prepare for all the conflict that’s sure to come.

Much of the drama in 18 involves an internal investigation among the Mechanical Separatists, who both need to know who poisoned their food supply in the last episode and who, Down Deep, is one of the double “listeners” feeding inside in the information above for Judicial. Deputy Hank eventually traces the poisoning to the very person who told them about it in the first place: the level’s head chef, who made a deal to keep her mother’s supply of medicine coming through the blockade. Knox says they forgive her, but he also promises to give her hell for a while for betraying the Mechanical.

Anyway, Knox and company can’t be too upset right now because they’re on a hot streak in their cold war with the upper levels. They have a fresh food supply now. And by using a cache of gunpowder – which they absolutely are not supposed to have — they begin this episode by shooting a rocket up through the middle of the silo, which then crashes leaflets, each of which causes the senior citizens to question why the power stays on in IT when Mekanisk goes off for the generator.

All of this is very bad news for Bernard. First, nowhere in The Order did anyone predict that the Mechanical would gain access to gunpowder. Second, the questions about IT’s secret power supply cannot be simply waved off as some kind of mechanical trick. When Bernard holds a meeting with the top deputies to try to get them on his side – in part by implying that Sheriff Billings is being held hostage by the Down Deepers – all the deputies will ask for are the leaflets. (“What does that mean? ‘IT’s lying to us?'”)

To make matters worse, when Bernard decides to officially transfer control of all riot-related cases from the sheriff’s deputies to the judges’ raiders, his newly appointed Judge Sims won’t sign the order without a meeting. Bernard had hoped that Sims would accept the figurehead he had been given and stay out of the way forever. But for that to happen, Sims must first understand why he spent a decade of his life being the silo’s resident boogeyman for Bernard without ever getting the payoff he expected: becoming the IT Shadow.

Like the tense conversation between Juliette and Solo, the angry conflict between Sims and Bernard is one of the highlights of this episode. It’s a cleverly written, directed and performed scene that explores the shifting balance of power between two longtime colleagues who have never been friends. Bernard believes that he is putting Sims in his place when he describes the former security chief thus: “You are very good at solving problems, but you lack curiosity.” But then Sims counters with a rundown of everything that’s going wrong in the silo right now, including the Vice Rebellion and a new wave of graffiti appearing on the stairs. Sims are connected enough to know that Bernard is losing control.

Bernard knows it too, which is why, despite all the crises brewing in the silo, he spends much of this episode in The Vault with Lukas, his new IT shadow. One of the most exciting moments this week comes when Bernard introduces Lukas to “The Legacy” – a library containing important historical artifacts and thousands of books and works of art, as well as a digital tablet containing hundreds of thousands. Bernard warns Lukas not to waste his time finding facts about astronomy or why the silo was built. Lukas must quickly learn all he can about code breaking in order to decipher Salvador Quinn’s letter.

For those of us hoping for more silo-related answers from Lukas’ new job… oh, well, not yet. But it’s fun to watch Bernard squirm as he puts his hope in Quinn, having buried a strategic solution to the growing rebellion that the Covenant and Order haven’t provided. And it’s even more fun to see what happens when Lukas realizes he needs access to a certain ancient book, not in The Vault, to crack Quinn’s code. Lukas doesn’t know which book, but Bernard is pretty sure he has the right one. It’s probably Mary’s old copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. After all, what better way to learn more about the man behind the curtain?

• No offense intended to Harriet Walter or Clare Perkins, but the Walker/Carla reconciliation storyline has yet to click on an emotional level for me… maybe because it’s been mainly limited to a scene or two spread out over several episodes this season. That said, Carla’s seclusion in an off-the-book legal cell is plot-relevant, as it prompts Walker — who is supposed to be lying low, incognito — to reactivate the security cameras she disabled to send a message to the powers that be about Carla. This has the unintended effect of alerting Bernard that Walker might know a thing or two about the stolen gunpowder.

• Camille Sims continues to lean into her Lady Macbeth era, whispering in her husband’s ear about how to steal power back from Bernard. It’s Camille who tells Sims to force Bernard to come to him, saying, “If you go to him, you’re doing him a favor.” But Sims also worries that his wife tried to keep him away from Bernard because she has been secretly working with the rebels. Wear and tear indeed.

• According to Bernard, the only information available in The Legacy about Silo 18’s history is that it is 352 years old … which makes Bernard’s statement last week about “140 years of stability” that much more provocative, yes?

• Next week’s episode is called “The Book of Quinn.” Here we go.